


Before I Go

by AngeloDiGrazia



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Canon Rewrite, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Fluff, I swear it makes sense I SWEAR, Its weird but I promise it makes sense, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre Heroes of Olympus but also it’s kinda happening after Trials of Apollo?, Rick Riordan Demigod Universe | Riordanverse, mentions of death and gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27995988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeloDiGrazia/pseuds/AngeloDiGrazia
Summary: “Nico, you know how this goes.” Jason’s smile was back, mirroring his own tears. “You can’t save everyone.”“I haven’t savedanyone!” Nico screamed back, frustration and anger growing behind the sorrow that settled in his mind. “It’syou...! I just wish-...”He took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering close as he tried to calm himself down. He could still see him in the blackness of his closed eyes, the bloody form of yet another person he lost. Another person he would have to learn how to live without.“I just wish I could’ve savedyou.”
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace, Piper McLean/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Comments: 12
Kudos: 65





	1. Nico’s Prologue

He was standing still, surrounded by darkness. He could feel death around him, souls lost in their eternal slumber. But it couldn’t see them. 

His dreams rarely brought him to the Underworld. They warned him about things he didn’t want to see and his father’s realm had always been a comfortable space for him. So, he wondered...

His first step revealed only what he already knew: the darkness would follow him. Small tendrils of pure black engulfed his worn out sneakers whenever he tried to calmly escape the disconcerting blindness. Was he supposed to just stand there? Where even was *there*? 

He inspected the very short space that was his own personal circle of light. His fingers wiggled at his command, trembling as he watched his hands turn in front of him. He felt his eyebrows furrow in confusion. 

He wasn’t cold.

As his fingers grazed his own palms, he started to be more aware of himself, instead of focusing on his unseen surroundings. The usually dry surface of his skin had more traction to it, like it was... wet. Like they had been wet for a long time, fingertips shrivelled up like an old prune. He didn’t know why that made his eyes sting. Were they wet too?

He touched his own face, wiping away the liquid around his eyes, the movement scratching his cheeks. His fingers came away clean, it was just water. What was happening?

He turned on his heels, his gaze doing a three-sixty swipe of his surroundings, only to verify they were as empty has he had registered the first time. No water, just... void. Nico took another step, but his feet just buried themselves in a mix of darkness and soft, white sand. 

...Sand?

He could feel the stare burning into his skin before he carefully lift his head. He was no longer alone and suddenly... It made sense.

A sob left his lips before he had time to process anything else but the overwhelming wave of pain that washed over his whole existence. His chest went still. The world turned blurry in a fraction of a second. As small as it was...

The figure stood only a few feet away, soaked to its core. His light blue t-shirt was stained with a dark red, almost black liquid that needed no further explanation. It stuck to his muscles, ghostly white skin peeking through the gruesome gashes in the fabric. He was shaking lightly, which justified Nico’s own involuntary movement earlier. For some cruel reason, his own image mimicked what his eyes hadn’t yet seen.

He let the trapped air in his lungs escape him, taking staggered breaths into a heaving and painful chest. His eyes traveled from the blood to the patches of salt left by dried sea water that clung to the skin of the figure’s arms and felt like an active attack on Nico’s own life. To the lose strands of his perfectly blond hair, damp and stuck a wet forehead. To the sympathetic smile that stretched his shilling purple lips.

To the tender, electric blue eyes of Jason Grace.

“No...” Nico shook his head in denial, the breathy word hoovering in the empty space between them like a cloud of poisonous air.

Jason’s eyes glinted in the faint light, his cheeks rising as the corners of his lips pushed them away from a growing smile. It didn’t help him, seeing Jason smile. How could he?

“I’m glad I got to see you... Before I go.” 

He kept shaking his head involuntarily. There was just nothing else he _could_ do. He could force himself to wake up, although he knew that wouldn’t change anything. It wasn’t just a dream. It felt real enough. And Nico _knew_ , amidst his vehement denial, that it had really happened. 

Jason Grace was dead.

“No, no, no.” He took a step forward, but the distance didn’t change. His chest ached a little more when he realised that he wouldn’t be able to close the gap between them, like a reminder that the thin line of life permanently separated them. “Please...”

Another sob. This one seemed to physically hurt the son of Jupiter, for his expression fell. His usual optimistic demeanour, the attempt at sugar coating the situation with his kind smiles, it was gone with the echoing sound of Nico’s tears.

“I’m sorry.” Jason tilted his head, sympathetic to Nico’s pain. “But I couldn’t let them die...”

“But-...”

“It’s okay...” His voice was small, and Nico didn’t know who he was trying to convince. “It’s okay.”

Nico sniffled, the uncomfortable feeling of a blocked nose pushing further into his tear canals. He blinked the latest water agglomeration out if his eyelids to dissipate the blurriness. 

“I could’ve helped.” 

For some reason, Jason seemed to find this amusing. His shoulders shook in a silent chuckle, the white of his teeth peeking through his ghostly lips. Nico could feel the knot in his throat grow impossibly large. He couldn’t take this. 

“You are... Helping.”

“How!?”

“You’re here.” His answer was almost immediate, like he knew Nico would try to contest his words. He was right.

“That’s not what I meant...”

“Nico, you know how this goes.” Jason’s smile was back, mirroring his own tears. “You can’t save everyone.”

“I haven’t saved _anyone_!” Nico screamed back, frustration and anger growing behind the sorrow that settled in his mind. “It’s _you_...! I just wish-...”

He took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering close as he tried to calm himself down. He could still see him in the blackness of his closed eyes, the bloody form of yet another person he lost. Another person he would have to learn how to live without. 

“I just wish I could’ve saved _you_.”


	2. Is it Hell or High Water

Jason’s eyes shot open, his lungs begging for the sweet relief of being stretched by a grand influx of air. It hurt to breathe in, like his alveoli had been taking a break from their only job for too long, like they had become rusty. And even though it was the sort of pain that felt _good_ to have, it left him gasping and struggling to make sense of his surroundings.

In front of him, he saw only black with a bright tint of orange shining through his peripheral vision. He was sore, a sharp pain radiating from his neck and through his spine like he had just been run over by a truck. Or twenty.

He was dead. 

He remembered the searing pain that caught him off guard and knocked him off his feet. He could still feel the small point between his shoulder blades where the metal had pierced through his skin, his muscles. Where it caught bone in its way through his thorax much like the long blade of Michael Varus’s sword had once crossed his torso. 

He remembered Nico and how much it pained him to see the son of Hades cry over his own failure to stay alive. How he wanted to reach out and comfort him and how he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to move towards something he would never be able to touch again. 

Was this his punishment? To lie in darkness until his memories faded so much he couldn’t remember his name? Would he be bound to excruciating pain? To a breathless eternity? He guessed he’d done enough bad things to deserve it. He was sure all the people he wronged would agree this fate to be fitting for a son of Jupiter. The Legion. His sister. Reyna. Piper. 

_Nico_.

Jason didn’t dare move. He figured he had all the time in the world to do so. He tried to catch his breath, although he was starting to believe he would be stuck with the sensation of having his wind knocked out of him forever. The feeling of panic continued filling his chest instead of the air he tried to breathe in. 

Whoever said death was peaceful had probably never experienced it quite like he did.

_Jason!_

The voice came from afar. Maybe a memory trying to reach out to him and comfort him in his misery. It was familiar but, amidst so many swimming thoughts, he couldn’t pinpoint how he knew it. He wanted to hear it again.

 _Jason_!

He frowned, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. The sound was closer. Almost within his reach. He almost expected the memory to overwhelm his senses all at once. But it didn’t come.

Instead, someone leaned over him. He had to blink the blur out of his eyes, the fogginess out of his brain, before he could process what was happening.

How? He was dead.

A thick braid of brown hair fell over his chest, hands palpating his aching ribs as the sound of tired breathing matched the fast rising of his own chest. The glint of bent golden armour almost blinded him, but he didn’t look away from the sight.

Reyna inspected every inch of him, her weight comfortably against the right side of his torso as she seemed intent on finding something to blame for his immobile state. Would she find the recent wound just over his diaphragm? Or maybe the several cuts to his arms that marked his ghostly skin, constantly reminding him of the Emperor’s merciless blows?

“Hey!” She tried again, her cold hands cupping his face and waking him up from his self-pity. His regrets. He didn’t want to die, he concluded as a sob grew in his throat. But he would do it again if given the choice. “We did it! You did it!”

She laughed. It was a genuinely happy gesture, mixed with the breathless tone of relief. She let her forehead fall on his chest as she continued chuckling, and Jason had the weirdest feeling of _deja vu_ in his life. Correction, in his _death_. 

He kept forgetting he wasn’t alive anymore.

The moment felt familiar. Sounded familiar, like something he had experienced a really long time ago. He sighed, letting his chest heave as he realized the growing pressure. With his whimper came water, filling his eyes as he realized he had been right: it _had_ happened before. A distant memory that had come back to haunt him, a lot more painful now than it had been the first time he lived through it.

The rest of his senses started catching up to the darkness around him. He could hear the indiscernible chatter, sometimes interrupted by cheers. He could hear the clicking of metal, which he recognized from swords and armor from the many times he had produced that sound himself. There was the faintest uproar of flames muffling the louder, more prominent sounds. 

As the cacophony got closer, he knew what was about to happen. His chest hurt, but he now knew it wasn’t from the unexpected shaft of a spear running through it. The pain came from the very high fall, the badly coordinated leap he had taken from the top of the mountain. The breathlessness came from almost two days of continuous fighting where he didn’t get the chance to rest his head even for a second.

He was tired. Not dead. And he was about to be paraded around his Legion and to be unanimously given a position he didn't want, but everyone thought he should have. 

“Hey...” Reyna smiled at him, trying to encourage him in a moment of weakness as she started getting pulled away by excited legionnaires. He could see her eyes welling up just like his, and it comforted him to remember just how compassionate his partner could be. "You did it!"

_At what cost?_

  
➿

  
Jason expected to wake up back in the infinite void of death. 

He didn’t know if that endless sea of darkness was his new home or if it was something he would have to go through before he faced the three judges of the Underworld. Was he already being judged?

Was this painful reliving of key moments of his career as a demigod how the three kings decided his fate? Was he navigating his life to give the judges insight on how to be judged? Had he done enough to be spared a terrible punishment, or even the fate of aimlessly roaming through the Fields of Asphodel?

He opened his eyes to find the softly lit space of his new quarters. 

Everything was as he remembered it. He was an organized person and the Legion had taught him that one should not have too many belongings. The imminence of war should keep you light for travel. It made his moving into a private room extremely easy.

Greek life, on the other hand, taught him that a few clothes out of place and a little bit of cluttering were beneficial to your mental health. Sometimes.

He sat up with a sigh, blinking until his eyesight adjusted to the poor illumination. He inspected the bare surfaces of his dresser and nightstand, the lack of photographs or other mementos bothering him to some extent. 

Jason smiled at the tattered purple fabrics sloppily thrown on the floor just under the windowsill, put there by his very tired past self. The spoils of war. The only thing that indicated he hadn't dreamt last night.

He noticed his vision was not blurry without his glasses, which made sense since he had not yet needed a prescription for them. Hera hasn't happened to this Jason. _This Jason_. They were the same person. Why was it hard for him to not make the distinction between them?

He wondered how much he should think about the implications of reliving such crucial months of his life again. Wondered if this was a punishment or a second chance. If he could change these memories or if he would be forced to reenact them word by word. 

Would he be able to hug his friends more often? Could he offer them comfort when he had been too shy to reach out before? And would his actions change anything for them or would they just serve to make him feel better in his afterlife?

Was he about to forget everything for a second time? 

No. _This isn’t real_.

Jason slid himself out of bed. He put on a t-shirt and jeans and threw his brand new purple lined toga over his shoulder. He had to pause at the door, taking a deep breath before facing whatever it was that he was going to find on the other side.

So far, it looked like the day was going exactly like it had the first time he had lived it. 

There was a new excitement around Camp, an energy that came from the collective relief of a Legion no longer fighting for their lives. Morning activities had been canceled and some demigods just sat around patches of green, enjoying their breakfasts and exchanging stories. There was a lot that needed to be done, but Reyna knew no one would be fully functional without some rest. 

It felt like it all had happened in a different millennium, and maybe it had. How long had Jason been stuck in his little bubble of unconsciousness? How long did he have before it ended for good?

He greeted campers as he passed them on the stone path, looking over his shoulder to follow the ones he knew best, distractedly thinking it might very well be the last time he would see a familiar face. Some joked by bowing a little too hard and, amidst his worries, it made Jason bashfully smile and shake his head. He wasn't too happy about the responsibility, but he was just as content with the support as he had been before.

“Watch where you’re going, _Praetor_!” 

The loud exclamation made him stop in his tracks and he was surprised to find his nose ended up inches away from the hard stone wall that circled the city. Jason smiled sheepishly as he took a step back, the grey monotonous eyes of the border God following his movements.

“I’m sorry, Lord Terminus. I was-...”

“Distracted, yes.” He interrupted, clearly not impressed. “Congratulations on your new position, child. I assume that is not a stylish bedsheet you’re carrying around with you.”

“No, Lord Terminus,” Jason confirmed, eyes the clump of fabric over his shoulder. “It’s-“

“No, it's an official symbol!” His tone made Jason flinch in anticipation of the rest of his reprimand. “Has no one taught you respect, boy!? Do you not know we are an institution with rules and-...”

While the God continued with his usual discourse about the presentation of a Roman Official, be it low or high rank, a blond head of hair peeked behind his pedestal. Little Julia offered Jason a shy smile, which he retributed. He remembered the countless occasions the two of them had silent conversations under Terminus’ rage until he decided Jason was worthy of stepping inside the city limits.

He felt a sting of guilt - an emotion he was starting to be too familiar with - as he realized he hadn’t thought about Julia at all in all the time he had been away. He hadn’t thought about many people that deserved his attention, his worry. The realization that he wasn’t that great of a person was starting to hit him with force and he imagined that was the point of being put through all of this: to see his mistakes, to get an explanation for his _dictum_.

The girl extended her empty metal tray. It was hastily painted pink with what Jason imagined was not appropriate ink for the material because her hands were equally stained. He could spot a few stickers on the inside and the sight of an angry _Hello Kitty_ staring up at him made him smile.

He dropped his golden coin on the tray and gave the kid a wink, to which she giggled and took it as her cue to hide behind the God again.

“...-pect you to wear the appropriate attire.” Jason wondered how much important information he had missed while he and the six-year-old had an eyebrow-wiggle-based conversation. “Do you understand, Praetor Grace?”

“Yes, sir.” He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he was more amused than he should have been. For a punishable dead man.

“Hmph.” The God snorted. “Very well. You may pass now. I don't want you to be late.”

With a small bow of his head, Jason crossed the Pomerian line. 

The last time he had seen it so closely he had been attacked by several flying objects. He was told more of the event than he remembered, having ended up blacked out and with a week-long concussion aboard the Argo II. But it felt good to be back in New Rome.

He studied the tall marble columns as he climbed the steps to the Senate House. One thing he didn’t miss was meetings. Jason didn’t have a problem talking to people or getting his message across. But he disliked being the center of attention, which was inevitable if you talked at Senate. He prayed for inclusion most of his life, and he’d found a better version of it with the Greeks. He wondered what he could do to change how things worked at Camp Jupiter in only two months. 

As he entered the circular room where the Senate would take place, Jason couldn’t help but exhale loudly at how grand and imposing it was. He really didn’t remember much of his home - his first home, that is, and he felt the heaviness of his new post accentuate the grandeur of the old building for him. 

The echo of voices filled the room and a couple of people clapped him on the shoulder as he passed through the stone seats that faced the podium in a semicircular arrangement. 

He is almost stopped by Gwen, now the Senior Centurion of the Fifth, who squeezed his hand in an appreciative manner but immediately let go. It wasn’t her intention to keep him, she just wanted to let him know he’d done alright the night before. That she was proud of him. It pained his chest a little, the way he was seen by his colleagues. His friends. Friends he had abandoned because he put himself first. And where had that ended him?

Jason didn’t remember feeling so emotional over such a small gesture before. Maybe he was more grateful for the small demonstrations of affection now that he knew the days of loving gestures were counted for him. Maybe someone was meddling with his emotions to amplify them in a way that benefited his suffering. 

He wasn’t sure what it was, but he decided to ignore the reasoning behind it. He would accept the pain if it meant he got to take small moments like this with him, until all of himself faded away. Those were good memories to carry.

Reyna was pacing by her usual seat. She seemed distressed, which was only more evident with Aurum and Argentum’s ears shifting direction in a sign of restlessness. Jason petted the cold, golden head of the Imperial gold dog while a silver snout rubbed against his thigh.

“Hey, buddy...” He greeted the canines as they addressed him, obviously not talking to Reyna. But she seemed to take it as an opening to express her concerns.

He would not, on any occasion, refer to Reyna as _buddy_. She knew this, and it would be something he would never hear the end of if she really thought the term was directed at her. But she really didn’t seem to care what he called her in that moment in time because she wanted to get something off her chest. 

How had Jason forgotten what had his fellow Praetor in such a frenzy? This had happened before, after all. He tried to think back to all the meetings they’d had in between the end of the Titan War and his kidnapping. He couldn’t, for the life of him ( _haha_ ) make out a timeline that gave him a good enough clue.

“We have a problem.” She whispered, pulling him to the corner of the seating area by both his hands. “We-...”

She paused and took a deep breath, rolling her eyes at him. It took him a few seconds to realize what she was shaking her head at, but once he understood, Jason relaxed a little. 

“I can’t take you seriously with that thing draped over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes.” She pulled the messy toga from his shoulder and immediately started to neatly position it on his shoulder. “Anyway...”

“We have a problem?” Jason repeated, lifting his arm before being told to do so.

He could see Octavian setting up his stuffed animals for the inaugural reading, which everyone has agreed didn’t need to be closely watched by anyone in particular. It wasn’t like they could decipher Lord Apollo’s message through stuffing and they were certain Octavian would make a spectacle out of a bad omen either way. 

“Yes!” Reyna's tone snapped him back to their conversation. “One of the Gods... They sent someone. With a _letter_.”

“Reyna, that hardly seems like a problem,” Jason stated, letting her wrap her arms around his waist to retrieve the excess fabric that would soon sit uncomfortably across his chest. 

She seemed to take advantage of the closeness to lower her voice even more. Jason swallowed, a little uncomfortable, but Reyna she didn’t seem to notice. She was very dismissive of etiquette when her mind was occupied with... A new recruit?

“No.” He wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with him or not. “It wouldn't be if they'd come through Lupa.”

She threw the toga over his shoulder and swiped her hand over the fabric to smoothen out edges that he was sure would only disappear if he ever decided to iron the giant piece of formal attire. And he wouldn’t.

“Then who sent them?”

But then it hit him. All new campers passed through Lupa. All the new recruits had to visit the Wolf House before they joined the Legion. So this person wasn't joining the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. 

He remembered the chaotic nature of the first meeting after the fall of Mount Othrys. There was discussion of new posts, of camp activities, and discontent Lares trying to keep their old traditions. He remembered the divided fronts and the rumours. He remembered how even himself had been very torn between acceptance and mistrust. 

Reyna sighed, the gesture almost in sync with a loud gasp that echoed through the domed space. Jason didn’t look back, knowing perfectly well that the source of the interjection had been Octavian, who had likely just predicted a possibility for the end of the world.

“Pluto.” Reyna said, softly clapping her hand on Jason’s chest a couple of times as she tried to hide her exasperation. 

“ _Pluto_ sent an Ambassador.”

  
Jason was distracted for the whole of the assembly. 

It was customary for a high ranking member of the Senate to make a speech to initiate the meeting and both he and Reyna were in agreement that she should continue doing so. She knew what to say. 

After her congratulatory words and the presentation of the changes in ranks, Jason decided he didn't have anything else to add to the rest of the presented themes at the meeting. 

The cohorts reported their losses. Reyna recorded the changes they would have to make for their budget and where to direct their funds in the near future - they’d talked about this before, even if he wasn't Praetor yet, and she knew she had his full support. Octavian kept going on about how bad his readings had been and kept being asked to sit back down by several members of the Senate. Some of the older demigods that attended as honorary members of the Legion did this on a regular basis. Reyna thanked them silently every time. 

It all passed as a blur for Jason. There was something else on his mind, chewing at his interest in war logistics. He wondered what in this day would be detrimental for his judgement in death. Why was he going through a boring council where he didn’t even intervene much? What was the goal?

Jason kept his gaze on the small ball of black trying to remain as unnoticed as physically possible on the second row of seats in front of him. He didn’t have much detail about his life before Juno since his memories hadn’t fully returned, which he figured was why he was reliving them in such detail. So he didn’t remember personally meeting Nico Di Angelo. Not the first time.

He sat in his deep black toga, which on its own was a bold statement. It had earned him a few concerned looks from the rest of the people present, but especially the retired legionnaires. 

Togas had a code. Most of the time, people didn’t really pay much mind to them but in Senate, they were an important piece of identification of hierarchy. Jason hated that they kept that dress code, seeing as they knew everyone’s rank in the Legion and outsider usually had no idea of what to make of the differences. But most people supported tradition more than they did change, so he washed his hands of it, just like Pontius Pilate, and didn’t bring up the conversation again.

Jason, Reyna and Octavian wore the same colored togas. They were white with a broad purple stripe that indicated their rank in the Legion. The _toga praexta_ was only worn by Praetors, Priests - which as an Augur, Octavian qualified as, Pontifeces and Kings. Since they had none of the last two, the three of them were the highest-ranking officers in the Senate. 

Their Centurions presented themselves in their armor and cloaks, which they preferred to their white togas. This was something the Lares weren’t happy about as armour was reserved for Generals which they, by Roman law, weren’t. But it was yet again a rank they rarely saw occupied by a member of the Legion so previous Praetors had deemed feet for it to be formal attire for the leaders of their Cohorts. 

The _toga picta_ is what Nico should have been wearing as consul and ambassador of a God. Purple with gold motifs to show his importance above the ranking officers of the Legion. Even if had decided to wear his father’s predominant color, he could have embellished the fabric with something that would distinguish him from the image he ended up portraying. But he had gone for _solid_ _black_.

Black was worn by mourners. Jason’s eyebrows furrowed closer together as he thought of the implications of wearing a simple black _toga pulla_ to his first Senate meeting and immediately felt horrible about himself. It fit Nico’s general inclination for dark clothing, yes. Just like it matched his father's dark realm of domain. But, like everyone else around him should be, he _was_ mourning. He had just lost so many people in New York, likely a lot more than the Legion had lost at Mount Othrys. 

Pluto - no, Hades had sent his fresh out of battle, mentally exhausted son to the other side of the country to play a game of pretend. And he’d decided to do it on his own terms.

Was this Jason's mistake? Had he overlooked this information before? Had he just taken it for an expected fashion choice coming from a son of Pluto? How much had Nico suffered like this alone?

“Praetor Jason!”

He gave a little jump in his chair before turning his attention to the source of the sound, which turned out to be a very angry Octavian standing over the podium with his gutted teddy bear.

“Yeah!” His first instinct was to reply as loudly as he had been called, which he decided was a mistake as soon as he had done it. It came out as if a teenager was acknowledging their parent in annoyance. 

Jason covered his mouth with his fist as he stared at his augur, who seemed to still be trying to decide how to respond to his tone. He could see Reyna pressing her lips together and lowering her head in an attempt to contain laughter, something a couple of the Centurions didn’t manage to do. It was unlike her, so he imagined the subject wasn't of utmost importance or she already knew the outcome of the exchange that was about to happen. 

“As I was saying...” The augur continued, eyes piercing through Jason like he meant to blow him up with the sheer power of his mind. “You, more than anyone here, will agree we should carry on with the celebrations of the Vinalia Rustica.”

“Wait, what?” He sat up straighter in his chair, blinking in confusion.

The Vinalia Rustica, or the Harvest Festival, was a celebration in honor of Jupiter, who blessed the weather that oversaw the vines during the year until they were ready to be collected and put to use. It was in the nineteenth of August that a priest of Jupiter - in their case, a high ranking member of the Legion - would harvest the first grapes. 

It seemed futile to put their efforts into something as inappropriate as a party.

“Why, you don’t mean to tell me you will pay such disrespect to your father, the Lord King of the Skies, as to cancel a festival in his honor.”

Octavian snorted, looking around the room as if the notion of canceling the Harvest was the biggest nonsense he had ever heard. 

Jason wasn’t one to get bothered with or by celebrations, but what the scrawny blond legacy was suggesting completely focused his mind on the meeting for the first time since it had started.

 _This is it_ , he thought, _This is why you’re going to suffer eternal damnation._

The number of times he had deliberately disrespected his father in favor of living, mortal demigods was astounding. And he wasn't counting the ones pre-Gaea. The judges of death were just reminding him of how much he deserved to suffer for such a collection of sins.

He remembered now why this particular meeting had been a controversial mark in his _repertoire_. 

“People died, Octavian.” He spoke in a calm tone, the almost physical shift in energy noticeable around him almost instantly. “We’ll need more than one day to finish the funereal rites. We'll cancel the Festival.”

“We can continue them on the twenti-“

“You’re suggesting we postpone our legionaries’ burial for a party?” Jason was very close to standing up in dismay.

“No!” Octavian was having a hard time not assuming a confrontational stance. Jason could see his right eye twitching while trying to maintain the voice of reason. “I’m suggesting we honor Jupiter and the Pantheon for allowing us to succeed in our battle against a _Titan_.”

“Okay.” Jason pushed himself off his chair and leaned against the podium. 

He gave Octavian one of his nonconforming smiles to let him know something he would hate with a passion was coming his way. Just like he did when he played his words so right, he turned entire cohorts against each other. Just like he did every time he saw something in their future that would end up benefiting him more than the overall fate of the Legion. 

Just like he had done when he tried to discredit Dakota and Jason’s merit as Centurions before they helped defeat a Titan and singlehandedly prevent the rise of the Lord of Time. Or so Octavian thought.

“We’ll hold the Festival.” His eyes paused on Nico, who was curiously watching the exchange, before turning to Octavian. “We will honor the Gods by respecting the people we lost and their families. We’ll give every last one of them a proper funeral and we’ll not harvest a single grape until we reevaluate.”

“You can’t-...!”

“Alright!” Reyna was suddenly standing between him and the augur as if she were afraid he would jump on Jason. “We’ll vote on it now.”

“No, this is ridiculous!”

“The motion is as follows” Reyna shot Octavian a hard look as she addressed the Senate. “Instead of the Vinalia Rustica, we’ll dedicate the day to funeral rites and to honoring the fallen demigods and their families.”

Octavian gasped in outrage, slamming his hand on the marble platform, which Reyna decided to rightfully ignore.

“And we won’t harvest a single grape until it is discussed in the next meeting.” She upturned the corner of her mouth at Jason in a subtle smile. “All in favor?”

Almost every single hand shot up, apart from a few people from the higher cohorts who were unmistakably siding with Octavian for the sake of his favor. This was a problem Jason intended to fix but never got the chance to try before, having to sail over to Europe instead. But he was happy with the outcome of the vote.

“Great.” Reyna clapped Octavian on the shoulder, content to be free of official affairs, and stepped down from the short step that surrounded the podium. “Dismissed. Good job, everyone.”

Octavian continued muttering under his breath, trying to direct his gaze anywhere but in Jason’s direction, which he too agreed was for the best.

The rest of the people made their way to the exit, except for the son of Hades. He didn’t move an inch, still in his lightly hunched position, elbows buried in his knees. Jason had seen him rub at his eyes a couple of times. He was tired and he didn’t want to be at a Roman Senate meeting. 

Jason circled Octavian, wondering how much he could change within his memories, if he would even be allowed to change anything apart from small details that wouldn’t change a spectator’s perception of his actions. But he wanted to talk to Nico. 

He missed him, was he real or not. Just like he missed everyone else he didn’t get to say goodbye to on his terms. Or at all. 

His footsteps echoed on the marble surface of the building as he crossed the distance between the Praetorial chairs and the rest of the semicircle of benches across the room. Jason started unwrapping his toga, which he was no longer used to wearing and was leading him to a growing sense of constriction he didn’t want to deal with. 

All the movement and loud noise must have caught Nico’s attention because he rose from his seat, anxious, likely anticipating an interrogation similar to the one Reyna must have put him through earlier. 

“Hi.” Jason greeted, extending his hand for shaking as a form of greeting. “Jason Grace. Reyna told me about you.”

He waited for a few seconds, hastily wrapping his robes in a ball with his free arm. Old Jason, the strictly Roman Jason that didn’t know about the existence of any other Camp, that didn’t know anything but life in New Rome, would be gravely disappointed in his disregard for formal wear.

“Right.” He lightly took his hand just as Jason was getting ready to give up, and gave it a nudge before retrieving his long fingers and hiding them behind his t-shirt covered biceps. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your... Huh, thing.”

Jason smiled and waved his hand dismissively.

“That’s alright. We do this _thing_ all the time. The more the merrier.”

Nico nodded, pursing his lips and avoiding eye contact. they weren’t friends, they didn’t know each other. This Nico hadn’t been through the navigation in the Argo II, the forceful ways of the Love God or the late summer night conversations at Camp Half Blood. This Nico didn’t trust Jason.

“So...” He started, his dar irises veering off to Octavian for a second. “That was a bold move. Z-... Jupiter has a big head.”

Nico’s stutter at the mention of Jason’s father didn’t go unnoticed, but he decided not to mention it. 

“Yeah...” Jason followed his gaze to see his augur still shaking his head at his decision to disrespect a God. “So he can spare _one_ festival.”

Nico nodded. Nothing else.

“We’d be honored to have your help.” Jason continued, keeping his small smile as he faced the son of Hades. “If... If you have time.”

“My help?”

“With the burials.” Jason clarified.

“Oh.” Nico seemed surprised to be asked to stay. 

It wasn’t an invitation Jason expected to see accepted, but he tried nonetheless. He knew Long Island had their fair share of demigods to mourn and bury, and he didn’t know how involved Nico had been in the process. He didn’t know if he had even returned to Camp after the events at the Empire State Building. It was something they never talked about and a tale Jason had only heard from Annabeth and Chiron. Neither acknowledged Nico Di Angelo’s participation in the war more than strictly necessary. Instead, they focused their narrative on Percy.

Jason didn’t blame them. It was only natural to keep the retelling of the Battle of Manhattan focused on the child of the big prophecy. But it led him to the realization that there was a lot he didn’t know about Nico’s part in it, his story.

“I’m... I’m sorry, I can’t.” Nico declined, expectedly. “I have other affairs.”

“Sure.” Jason tried to hide the small hint of disappointment he was feeling, even though he had been ready to see the request rejected. He didn’t know why he was so hopeful to change something that had already happened but, then again, he didn’t remember speaking directly to Nico before. 

He had changed something.

“Oh and...” Jason sighed as Nico started making his way down the row of stone seats. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Nico paused to look back at Jason, eyebrows close together in confusion. The expression slightly erased his tired features and gave him a more human look, reminded him of a Nico he had once known.

“The black toga.”

He looked down at his clothes as if he had forgotten what he was wearing and had to verify for himself he was indeed wearing black formal robes. Nico eyed him again, his unreadable expression now back, with the dissolution of the light expression creases around his eyes, and he gave him an appreciative nod. 

Next thing he knew, Nico had merged into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for my talented friend who’s taking a huge step in her musical career today and I am with this manifesting her utmost success!
> 
> I love you, little gremlin!


	3. Burden

The nightmares started on the second night. And they never stopped.

He woke up in a pool of his own sweat, violently gasping for air like water was flooding his lungs. His breathing was laboured and much too fast for it to be effective as he leaned over the side of the bed. The nausea hit him next, at full force, and neither one thing helped the other pass.

He felt overall uncomfortable. His t-shirt stuck to his chest and pressed against the base of his neck even after he pulled the fabric of the collar away with his fingers. His legs were tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets he had kicked around in his sleep. 

Jason felt trapped. He needed somewhere to go. Somewhere open, where he could see the sky.

It was the beginning of September, and it still wasn’t easy to fall asleep? It worried him it never would get any easier.

After a few nights of panic and waking up in his bed, Jason’s fear of returning to the Underworld was replaced by the fear of dreaming. Demigod dreams were usually strange and tiring, but his were filled with fear and hopelessness. He didn’t want to fall asleep and continue seeing _him_ every single night.

 _Caligula_.

Jason stumbled out of his room, trying to put as much distance between him and his nonexistent threat as he could. He only stopped when he felt the cold grass of the Cohort’s backyard beneath his bare feet and the cold breeze on his sweat covered forehead.

It was still dark and thankfully there wasn’t anyone around to see the miserable state he was in. The back of the buildings faced the Little Tiber and, for a moment, he wished he could draw strength and peace from its waters just like Percy. But his source of power was all around him and it was the one thing that was suffocating him. 

His face felt like it was about to enter its boiling point, contrasting with the cold shivers that ran down his wet back. It was a familiar feeling, considering how many times - only the previous week, he had felt so horribly helpless. And no matter how many times Jason had moments like these, he didn’t think he would ever get used to them.

It took him what seemed like an eternity to calm down. He paced on the margin of the river, his feet sticking to the muddy earth, until the expected fatigue caught up with him. The soreness that settled in his muscles didn’t allow him to aimlessly walk around in the cold mid night air, so he softly collapsed to the ground. 

Staring up at the clear sky, Jason couldn’t help but wonder if his father was laughing down at him from his very obvious high horse. He wondered if any of the other Gods looked down at a broken son of Jupiter and shook their heads in disappointment. He didn’t blame them if they did. He wasn’t particularly happy with how he was dealing with the situation either. 

He still wasn’t sure of the purpose of his situation, but he had accepted it was real. It had to be real. The handful of grass he grabbed told him it was too vivid a sensation to be a trick of the mind. And Jason had been in illusions before, he’d been a victim of magic and it didn’t feel magical at all. It felt... mundane. Pleasantly ordinary.

That meant anything he did could change the course of things. It meant that, even though he hadn’t massively changed anything, he had the possibility to. But changing the future could have grave consequences he didn’t want to deal with. Him dying was a certainty and it was something he was prepared to deal with. It was something he had chosen once and would rather choose again than see someone else die in his place. 

He spent hours mindlessly twirling his trusty golden coin between his fingers, sometimes. He itched to throw it at the small rainbows he saw during his day: walking by the fountain in New Rome’s centre square, washing Hannibal the elephant to help him with the heat. Even knowing nothing would happen without a drachma, Jason had a name ready for when that moment came and he almost didn’t care about the consequences. Thalia.

His sister was still out there, blissfully unaware that Jason was alive. He couldn’t make the same mistake he had made before and trust they would eventually have more time. Jason needed to take the steps necessary to not die having a stranger for his only family. 

And what would happen if Jason decided to Iris message Percy Jackson and warn him about their impending fate? Would he even believe him? More importantly, would he listen to a stranger telling him he was about to be kidnapped by a God? Would Juno stop him from making that call, afraid them meeting too soon could cause an irreparable rift between the two Camps and lead to Gaea’s success?

He knew the only reason he hadn’t contacted Camp Half Blood was his fear of dramatically changing the future into something worse than it already was. But he also knew that, realistically ( which was a ridiculous term for someone who had died to apply so freely ) he could end up stepping on an ant and causing a major disaster chain anytime. 

_I should have just stayed dead._

“What are you doing?”

The familiar voice startled him, sending his heart back into a frenzy and making him sit up in a rush. He knew only a handful of people who could sneak up on him so silently, and none of them had met him before his memory loss. Apart from one.

“Nico, hey!” He greeted, still surprised to see anyone out that late. Early?

He didn’t get a response, at least not an auditory one. It was likely that Nico’s facial expression would be enough for him to formulate his version of the son of Hades’ thoughts if only Jason had bothered to look in his direction. Sitting up in a rush had been movement enough for his banging headache.

With his head now buried between his knees, Jason did his best to make his words sound as clear as possible. “Do you not sleep?”

“Not tonight.” Cryptic. Jason didn’t know why he expected anything else. “Are you okay?”

He raised his head just enough to see Nico tilting his head to get a better look at Jason. He could see the faintest hint of concern in his brow, so subtle that anyone who didn’t know Nico well enough would have either misinterpreter the sentiment or miss it completely. 

“I’m fine.” Jason assured him. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh. I thought you might be sick.”

Something about the way Nico exposed his thoughts made Jason feel uneasy. There was the possibility that he had fallen ill, but Nico applied the word _sick_ like it was something so much worse than the common cold or a stomach flu. 

“Why did you think so?” He ended up asking, curious to see if Nico would give him the honest answer or try to divert from something he didn’t know was obvious to Jason.

It was funny to him that Nico was thinking so hard about his answer. Funny because he’d been given that unsolicited piece of information before, not only from Nico but from other people at Camp Half Blood. He had heard numerous variants of the sentiment, throughout two years, since he had first worn an orange t-shirt. 

_I thought you were gone!_

_You won’t die. Not yet._

_You should be dead._

“You smell like death.” Nico carefully sat down next to him, offering him an apologetic grimace.

He wondered if his emotions transpired enough for Nico to perceive them clearly. Did he feel like he had just given Jason a death sentence? Was that why he felt like he needed to apologise for the comment? Or could he feel that same sentence had already been passed by someone else in a much more violent and nonverbal way?

Jason felt like a terminal patient who had been given an estimate for his life expectancy, yes. But Nico hadn’t put him there and Jason started going through the stages of his own grief before Nico even came into play. But he was somehow grieving in reverse.

He had easily accepted to die for Piper, or rather _in Piper’s place_. It was a final decision, one that put an end to him having to decide anything else. Ever. But there he was, alive and afraid. Eternally damaged.

The fact that he now lived with knowledge no one else had filled him with a sense of responsibility so much worse than being elected Praetor, he almost wished he hadn’t been given this second chance.

Why did he have to go through so much again, with the added nightmares, the ghostly pains of the weapons that had fatally and so painfully pierced his skin? With the certainty that an all powerful primordial goddess was on the verge of rising and possibly annihilating the world? 

_I should have just stayed dead_.

There was no non-awkward way to continue the conversation without exposing himself and his truth, so Jason decided to remain quiet until enough time had passed that changing the subject didn’t sound like a diversion. 

Jason trusted Nico wouldn’t initiate another exchange with him. They’d met a total of four times since he had shown up in New Rome. Nico wasn’t usually a man of many words but Jason was a stranger. So he was especially quiet.

They’d had some jarring moments in the past, the two of them. Jason thought back to Nico’s pomegranate seeds rolling out of a broken jar, to the wave of pain he had unintentionally shared with Jason when faced with Cupid. He didn’t know what he could and could not change to keep his friends safe, but he was sure he wouldn’t let Nico be trapped again like that. He would do what he could to help him avoid that encounter.

“So” Jason was suddenly reminded that it was the middle of the night and, even though he was comfortable in Nico’s company, this setting didn’t make the slightest sense. “Why are you here, again? At...”

“Four in the morning.” Nico said factually.

“Okay.” He was stunned to find out it was that late, not having looked at a clock in a long time. “What are you doing here, at four in the morning?”

“I was looking for you.” 

Jason blinked, surprised by the honest but unexpected answer. 

“For me?” Jason wanted to clarify he had heard him correctly. “At-...”

“Four in the morning?” Nico interrupted, repeating the information a second time. “Yes.”

He watched the son of Hades, who had gone quiet again. He smiled at the fact that it was a very Nico thing to do to casually deliver a reply that, if looked into attentively, wasn’t all that casual. Because there had to be a good reason to think about waking someone at such an ungodly hour. 

With a small tilt of his head, Jason raised an inquisitive eyebrow and waited for that very reason to come. Once Nico finally looked back at him, his eyes grew and he cleared his throat.

“Right! _Because_ ” With a deep breath, he looked down and continued to avoid Jason’s eyes, almost like he was staring directly at the sun and couldn’t bear to do so anymore. “My sister was jut sent by Lupa. I’d like you to meet her.”

Nico was impatient. So impatient, Jason ended up walking the short distance to the Principia still barefoot and curled up inside an aviator jacket that didn’t belong to him. He never expected the thing to fit him, much less be comfortable. But, surprisingly enough, it fulfilled its purpose.

Jason didn’t remember ever being grabbed from his bed in the middle of the night by the son of Hades, even in a perfect world where he wasn’t being haunted by the ghosts of another life. Had Nico not felt comfortable enough to look for him then? What had changed? Was this because Jason decided to talk to him after his first Senate, or was there something else? 

Jason didn’t remember meeting Hazel Levesque in the middle of the night the first time, either. Assuming by the perfect image she had of him, spat at him in a moment of anger in the Argo II, Jason was certain he hadn’t shown up to her lightly dusted with dirt. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to give her something more like Jason Grace, less like Praetor of the Twelfth Legion. It was better that she knew he was expected to be less than faultless.

The stone interior of the building was poorly illuminated by a couple of orange lit wall lamps. The faint tint gave the stone columns a grimmer look than usual, which didn’t seem to bother any of the people present when they arrived.

Nico made a beeline for Hazel, who was sitting in the only chair in front of the old mahogany desk that had been left full of strategically placed papers by Jason and Reyna. The latter stood on the other side of the table, fully dressed, armed and obviously unhappy with the early start of her day. 

Next to her stood Octavian who, to Jason’s surprise, was also hastily wrapped in a coat that somewhat hid his nightwear. He knew Nico wouldn’t have sent for him so he wondered which one of his loyal followers had made him run to the Principa with the prospect of excitement. He knew that was the only reason the augur would show up without his belt of sacrificial lambs ready for slaughter: fear of having of missing out on an important discussion. 

Hazel looked like she had just come out of a horror movie, which wasn’t too far from the truth. Lupa was ruthless, even if it was for their benefit. 

She observed everyone with a high level of mistrust, even her concerned brother. Her hair was messily tied at the back of her head, a puff of kinky black hair that had just been through tortures at the Wolf House and sprouted an assortment of broken branches. Her purple t-shirt was ripped in some places and she hugged her arms like she was trying to make herself look smaller.

Nico lowered himself next to the wooden chair his sister was sitting on, giving her a comforting smile and exchanging a few whispered words while Jason approached his colleagues instead. 

“She’s a little old to show up at our doorstep.” Octavian said, not even waiting for a greeting. He was eager to make the situation a lot more complicated than it was. 

“I was twelve when I showed up at our doorstep.” Reyna‘s tone was flat and she was clearly not impressed by the choice of conversation opener Octavian had gone for.

“Your situation was special.” He rectified. “And you’re not a child of the Three Brothers.”

It wasn’t forbidden for the Big Three Gods to have children, so their offspring was likely to show up at Camp Jupiter at any moment. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans had never heard of any agreement made by these Gods not to have children with mortals due to their power. Instead, the Legion attributed the lack of Neptune, Pluto and Jupiter children to the fact that the little number of demigods they had were killed by monsters before they made it to the Wolf House. 

Jason knew where Octavian was coming from with his speculation, but he agreed it was not relevant to how they would proceed.

“We will assign her a cohort in the morning.” Reyna expectedly ignored Octavian’s comment, shifting her attention to Hazel and speaking directly to her. “For now, we’ll give you a room the Hostel in New Rome and you’ll have some time to get yourself cleaned up and rested.”

Hazel gave Reyna a shy nod, silently thanking her for the hospitality. 

She didn’t know how much it meant to Hazel to be able to slowly shift into the barracks instead of being thrown into a communal space with no adaptation period. But Jason did, and he was happy Reyna had offered the option, even though he knew she was doing it to spare herself a bombardment of questions from the members of whichever Cohort Hazel ended up joining - which Jason knew to be the Fifth, to no one’s surprise. 

Bad omens joined the Fifth. Surprises joined the Fifth. Girls with an unwanted, special taste for cavalry joined the Fifth. All judgements of one’s value that Reyna could share a few thoughts on as well, due to personal experience.

“Fantastic.” The disdain in Octavian’s voice was almost palpable. “Now all we need is a child of Neptune and we have the full set!”

“Shut it, Octavian.” Jason snapped at him, even though the comment itself entertained him. 

He couldn’t help but think of Percy Jackson making the augur’s life a little more difficult by completing his _set of inconveniences_ at Camp Jupiter. And it would all happen in just a few months. A legacy of the God of prophecy should know better than to taunt the Fates in such a distasteful way.

When he noticed four pairs of eyes on him, Jason did his best to neutralise his amused expression and buried his hands deeper into his pockets. He gave Reyna a subtle shrug, which she got as her cue to disperse the small group.

“Okay.” She said, dragging the word a little. “Is that all?” 

“I will consult the Auguries about the new comer at first light.” Octavian stated. “I will let you know the outcome.”

“You do that.” 

Jason smiled forcefully at the other blond, only to then watch him leave the room in silence. He noticed that he didn’t do it without before narrowing his eyes at Nico and Hazel, as if either of them would be intimidated by the the prospect of a threat.

“Thank you.” Nico said after he was sure Octavian was well out of hearing range. “I’m sure my father will be grateful too.”

Reyna nodded. “Would you like me to assign someone to show your sister around, Ambassador?”

Sometimes, Jason didn’t know if he loved or hated that Reyna seemed so good at separating business and leisure. He was honoured to be one of the few people who had seen her softer side and he could say that he didn’t see it enough. The last time he remembered seeing Reyna remove her figurative and literal armour had been when she had to mercifully put down Scipio.

Nico also didn’t seem surprised to have Reyna address him in such a formal way.

“I’ll take her.” He stood, offering Hazel his hand.

She seemed a little more at ease. Her eyes didn’t wander past the people she addressed, examining and questioning everything she saw and everything she was told. Jason was relieved that they managed to prove to her they were trustworthy enough for her to let her guard down, although he knew they would never prove to be worthy of knowing her truth until it was almost impossible to hide it. 

Hazel accepted Nico’s hand and he almost expected both of them to immediately disappear into the shadows, as it was Nico’s preferred way to exiting a room. Instead, he put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and started leading her to the open door. 

“Hey.” Jason called, before they passed the threshold. “Welcome to the Legion, by the way. It’s nice to have you with us, Hazel.”

She smiled politely and nodded, but he could see she still wasn’t too sure she agreed with his words. 

They were two sides of one sacrificial coin, now. She who laid dormant for years and was now thrown into a fragment of History she was destined to change. And Jason, who was back in a time he knew too well and yet, felt powerless to act on. 

His thoughts almost distracted him completely from the furrowed eyebrows Nico directed at him before he stepped out of the Principia. He wondered what he had done to puzzled him, or if he had even done anything. Whatever it was, he was sure it would find him if it needed to, maybe sooner than he thought.

“Nice jacket.” Reyna’s voice sounded behind him, a hint of teasing in her words.

She had sat down in the wheelie chair on the other side of the desk. Jason had always found it funny that the previous Praetors had chosen to throw an office chair into a very ancient looking room. He expected a velvety throne with excess embellishments on its arms or, maybe no chair at all. It was a very functional wheelie, but it felt so out of place he always thought he fell into a different world when he sat on it.

The same thought crossed his mind when Reyna, armour wearing and cloak bearing Reyna, sat down on the black leather chair and the plastic wheels rolled loudly onto the irregular stone floor.

She started distractedly arranging a stash of papers in front of her, carefully pushing their corners into place and watching her own fingers work their way across the misplaced margins.

For a split second, a wave of confusion crossed Jason’s mind as he turned to face her, but he realised the heavy leather brown aviator jacket he’d borrowed still weighted down on his shoulder.

“Oh, _shoot_.” He puffed up his cheeks and let his head fall back in annoyance as his mouth deflated in a sigh. 

If Nico wanted an excuse to go back to him with whatever thought crossed his mind before he escorted Hazel out, he had it. Jason just really wanted to go back to sleep.

“How did that happen?” Reyna smiled at him behind her lashes and quickly diverted her eyes back to a near stack of paper. 

Jason considered staying up and on his feet. It would make it a lot easier to just take off after the right sentence, but he sensed Reyna was starting a conversation that would last more than a couple of minutes. So he sat down in the chair that had been previously occupied by Hazel, letting himself slide down into a more relaxed position than what the chair was intended for. It was just him and Reyna.

“I don’t know...” He started with a shrug, stripping importance from the subject.

He had the option to dismiss her question entirely by giving her some random explanation or simply changing the subject. Jason knew Reyna wouldn’t push to know details of his night he wasn’t willingly giving her. But she was his friend. 

In fact, he couldn’t ignore that before his disappearance, he and Reyna were practically attached at the hip. He didn’t want to lie to her.

The truth was hard, and subjective in this particular case. Every single thing Jason said in this new reality he was living would be shadowed by infinite omissions. Even if he didn’t directly lie to Reyna, he would never be telling her the full truth. 

Even if he told her that he had nightmares, that he saw the same image every night and it was so unbearable that he was afraid to go to sleep... What would he even attribute it to? Krios had been a hard task, but not fuel for nightmares like this. Reyna would never believe Jason if he pinned the blame on the Titan Lord of the South. 

How could he explain to his friend that he was haunted by the occasional feeling of immense pressure in his sternum? How could he explain that it was hard to breathe sometimes and he was scared to look down and find the golden staff of a spear to be the reason of his pain?

He couldn’t.

So there was no way to tell Reyna that Nico had kindly given him his jacket when the breeze started to get a little hostile with the half a gallon of sweat that glued his hair to his forehead or hardened the shirt on his back. That Nico had chosen to silently accept that Jason Grace was an unstoppable force that had unfortunately found its immovable object and wasn’t ready to verbally ask someone to help him find a way around it.

Jason was thankful for Nico. And Reyna. And it pained him that he couldn’t tell them just how much.

“I was outside when he got to me. It was a little colder than I thought.” He decided to give her the short version of the story. The one with the less _omissions_.

“Okay.” Reyna nodded, resting her face in both her hands. “Couldn’t sleep?” 

“Yeah.” Jason snorted, disappointed on how much he had underestimated just how perceptive his friend could be. 

“This is weird, isn’t it?” 

“What?”

“Two children of Pluto in such a short time.” Her voice was as distant as her thoughts and she seemed to be looking right through Jason. “I don’t know... I just feel like something is coming.”

 _Because it is._

“Come on.” Jason sighed, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “We deserved some rest...”

Reyna gave him a small laugh, a disheartened gesture unlike the smile that followed.

“And when do we ever get what we deserve?”

They exchanged a long look until Jason nodded and lowered his forehead into the hard wooden surface of the table and shook his head lightly. They both knew she was right, him to a greater extent.

But maybe he _had_ gotten what he deserved. Wasn’t the law of prophecy that everything happened for a reason and that you couldn’t change the future? Didn’t he _get_ one prophecy that told him either him or Piper had to die? How could she ever deserve to die such a gruesome death? 

Jason got what he deserved. He chose to deserve it.

“Hey...” Reyna’s warm hand rested softly on his wrist. For someone seemingly so cold and out of touch, she sure knew exactly when to put a big red stop sign to Jason’s thoughts. “Are you okay?”

He looked up without lifting his chin from the desk. _Just lie_ , he told himself, _What’s one more?_

“Yeah...” He nodded as his lips brushed against the aged leather sleeve that covered his arm. “I will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Covid finally caught up with me. So I’m giving this chapter by terminated.
> 
> Here’s to a better 2021. I hope you all had and are still having a good Holiday season.


	4. Where The Spirit Meets The Bones

Unlike most of his friends, Jason always liked Temple Hill.

There was never a moment when there wouldn’t be at least one person around, but even that devoted demigod wouldn’t dare to approach Neptune’s shrine. Most of the legionnaires didn’t even dare look in the marble building’s direction for fear that the bad luck associated with the god suddenly leached on to them like a curse. A lonely camper certainly wouldn’t pay it much attention.

But the sea’s reputation didn’t bother Jason. How much more unlucky could a dead person get?

It was easy to boost himself onto the god’s roof and it had become a stable hideout when he wanted to get away from people. The only thing he disliked was the clear view he had of his father’s Temple across the stone path, big and imposing. Jason would often spend hours staring at the blank white eyes of the oversized statue of Jupiter that sat inside it, illuminated only by the few clandestine rays of sunlight that passed through the corinthian columns. They were silently judging his every decision which was something he didn’t appreciate, especially after all that had happened after Gaea.

The statue was a good depiction of his father. An honest one, be it in looks or the emotion it reflected. The more Jason looked at it, or at the row of old buildings that surrounded that one towering monument for Jupiter, the more he realised this was all the Romans knew of their parents. And maybe that was all they needed.

Gods were seemingly perfect, worshiped for their power and their grandeur. They were cold and attempting to reach them was an arduous uphill climb that people only completed in their most desperate times. And even then, all they found at the top was a row of stony, empty vessels, completely devoid of humanity and with overgrown weeds surrounding them. 

As someone who had met his godly parent, even if only once, Jason couldn’t say he had been impressed. Or intimidated, for that matter. The man (could he call him that?) was the result of other people’s beliefs and seemed to have no convictions of his own, other than the fact that he was to be respected by all. And for what reason? His status? At the end of the day, he was just another bad father, a husband and a bad leader. Generally speaking, he was a bad guy who had been handed too much power for the lack of intelligence he possessed to wield it. He was as dependent of his children and their feats as any other god on Olympus and he didn’t deserve the excessive veneration. None of them did. He wouldn’t get a standing ovation from his son, which was most likely partly why he had let him perish so easily.

There was virtually nothing about Jason’s existence that could benefit the king of the skies. Especially now that he could jeopardise the future of the world so easily. It was probably harder not to change its fate than it was to keep it on the right tracks. 

Had Zeus noticed something was different at all? According to his wife, he was starting to hide, preparing to close the doors of his safe little corner of the universe and preparing to stay confined in his comfortable castle while literal hell broke lose outside his window. Did he care at all about the outcome of Gaea’s attempted _coup d’état_? Was he aware of the severity of the consequences of her possible success?

All of Jupiter’s decisions were resumed to what would bring him the most individual profit. So Jason guessed dealing with a war so closely after ending another was not in his best interest.

When Thalia died, their father had significant motive to save her. She was someone he had good use for. She had a purpose, which was all that mattered to him. So it was an easy decision for him to snap his fingers and give her the promise of a second chance. If she ended up being the demigod of the big prophecy, she could elevate his reputation amongst the other gods. If she didn’t... A pine tree never hurt anyone, right?

What was Jason’s purpose?

He knew he was just another _bad weed_ at Jupiter’s feet: overgrown, inconvenient and an enormous stain on his perfectly clean image. A figurative pebble in his giant godly sandal.

Jason was the product of manipulation and his mother’s inconceivable goal of becoming immortal. Unlike Pluto with Maria Di Angelo (which, according to Percy, had tragic ending because Jason’s father’s royal entitlement), Jupiter wasn’t in love with Beryl. He came back a second time because she fed his self conceit, not because he cared about her or Thalia. He broke the rules for his own amusement and left the family to their own devices once they became more of a nuisance than a delight.

Not only were the implications of Jason’s existence generally bad, Juno was his patron. He’d been handed over to her like property and so were any of his life achievements. There was nothing left for Jupiter. He wasn’t _his_ anymore, he was just _his mistake_. 

He could imagine how easy it was to employ a careless attitude towards Jason’s death for someone as high and powerful as his progenitor. He could understand not wanting to admit you did something wrong.

But he would never forgive it.

Jason watched a couple of kids laughing and running in front of the bright pink roses that adorned Venus’ shrine. They were just as conditioned to serve the Pantheon as anyone else that walked the stone path of the shrines. A saddened smile sneaked up on his lips at the sight of the oblivious, infectious happiness only to have it hide at the unexpected movement behind him. He quickly looked over his shoulder and couldn’t help but sigh in relief. 

“Calm down, it’s just me.” 

Nico Di Angelo raised both his hands is mock surrender as he sat down on the flat surface of the roof next to him. He looked visibly tired, maybe even more than what was usual for him. Jason knew he probably mirrored his seemingly sleepless state because he hadn’t been getting more than a couple of hours a night. What a pair of haunting figures, the two of them had become...

He looked ahead, following Jason’s direct line of sight, probably trying to figure out what was so interesting that would keep Jason sitting there just staring at it. Or maybe just trying to find the words to ask.

“So...” Nico started. “What’s wrong?”

Jason raised an eyebrow, giving him a suspecting smile as he tried to decipher the nature of his question in uncomfortable silence.

Nico was the type of person to give others their space when they purposely distanced themselves from the world, because he appreciated when his own will to be alone was respected. It was unlike him to approach a stranger out of concern for their self isolation. And Jason was still very much just an acquaintance, with no traumatic or relevant events connecting the two of them in weird ways. At least not yet. 

“Who put you up to this?”

His shoulders shook under his heavy jacket as he huffed in a poor attempt at hiding a breathy laugh. Maybe it amused him that Jason hit the nail in the head so quickly. Maybe he expected that to happen.

“Reyna, mostly.” he replied honestly. “But I guess I’m a little curious myself now. Not very praetor like to run away to holy ground and hide from your problems.” 

“I’m not hiding!” Jason sighed, his voice small as he denied the fact that he was, in fact, hiding.

Nico nodded, casually lifting his hands again at Jason’s defensive tone. He wondered how exactly had Reyna convinced the son of Hades to have a look around for her lost praetor. Out of everyone she could’ve asked, he was the least expected to accept the job. Yet, there he was, chatting on a dirty roof.

“I was just thinking...” Jason admitted. “It’s only been a few weeks and it already feels like everyone’s forgotten...”

He knew he didn’t need to spell out for Nico that he was talking about the fight against Kronos’ forces. He wasn’t being truthful when he said that was what he had been thinking about before his arrival but he’d been hoping to bring it up with him, sometime. 

Jason knew he didn’t have a lot of time left with his memories and, this time, the loss of knowledge would be more of a blessing than a curse. He wouldn’t have to lie or pretend he was clueless. He could just... be. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t want to enjoy his time of knowing his friends, his past. Himself.

He wanted to know Nico’s story from him, not Percy or some greek camper who enjoyed gossip more than casual conversation. He wanted to know what he was feeling, wondered if he had talked about it with anyone at all. If he had even acknowledged out loud how hurt he was with everything that had happened before he stormed the streets of Manhattan with all his might. 

They now both held a similar amount of pain, safely trapped by their ribcages and weighting on their souls. And Jason didn’t think either of them would ever let it go.

There was no reaction next to him. It was an expected outcome of his attempt to start a conversation about the events of August, so he couldn’t say he was surprised by Nico’s silence. 

“To think the Titans could’ve made it to Olympus...” Jason continued. “I didn’t even think about the possibility until I saw the newspaper.”

“What?”

“New York?” He tried for a casual tone. “The fallen helicopter that apparently caused a mass accident between the Thirty Fourth and Fifth Avenue?”

Nico continued to look at him like he was talking gibberish and, again, Jason couldn’t blame him for standing his ground.

“There was a bridge that fell, broken statues, vandalised parks... A weird light on top of the Empire State Building?” Jason shrugged. “I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like an helicopter is a plausible explanation for that chain of events... Sounds like a Misty truth to me.”

He hummed. If it was a sign of agreement, Jason didn’t know. It sounded like he just had nothing to add to the conversation. Nothing that wouldn’t give him away, at least.

“I guess things were just a lot worse than we thought.” Jason tried for a dismissive smile as he took a deep breath and closed the topic of conversation. “Well, I’m glad it’s over! I’m just... still shaken, I guess.”

Nico seemed to sympathise more with this sentiment and nodded, looking at his own fidgety fingers. 

They sat in silence for a while after that.

Jason couldn’t say he minded these moments as much as he would have a few years ago (in his life’s timeline). To think he had once been anxious, even scared, to be alone with the son of Hades was almost laughable. Thankfully, his stance had changed and he could safely say Nico was one of the few people he felt completely safe with. Comfortable.

“I hope you don’t mind I went back for my jacket.” Nico tried to restart the small talk, pointing at the dark leather when Jason looked at him in confusion.

“Oh, yeah!” He shook his head lightly. “No, of course I don’t mind. Please! Anything you want to use as an excuse to search my room is fine with me.”

“Shut up.” Nico muttered, rolling his eyes at the playful comment. “You’re not that interesting.”

“Ouch?“

Nico shook his head as Jason chuckled lightly, a moment that didn’t last long since dark eyes suddenly turned back to face him. 

“Right!” Nico interrupted his quiet chuckles with assertiveness. “So, I did have something that I wanted to talk to you about—“

Jason couldn’t help but laugh a little harder as he gasped in offence, even if he were neither offended nor suspended their exchange was taking this turn.

“You mean you weren’t just worried about me?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Nico said, rightfully ignoring his interjection. 

He patiently waited until Jason’s own humour settled, which took a few seconds. His amusement died out as Nico kept staring at him with furrowed brows. He accepted Jason’s silent nod of understanding as a sign that he could continue.

“The other day, when you met my sister,” Nico seemed hesitant to finish the question, as if he was concerned for his reaction. “You knew her name. Why— How did you know her name?”

It wasn’t hard to seem confused by the insinuation that he was hiding something, because Jason genuinely didn’t remember the dawn when Hazel arrived at Camp very clearly. The whole August night was a little bit of a blur, if he were being honest. From the panic attacks to the cold, he subconsciously tried to forget as much of it as possible. Had no one mentioned the girl’s name before he said it? 

If Hazel had noticed anything, she didn’t show any signs of being suspicious of Jason. On the contrary. They’d become somewhat friends, since he had made it his personal mission to keep daughter of Pluto in what he knew were more comfortable settings for her. She seemed to like the stables and Jason made sure she got to spent time with the horses. Hazel, in return, had started teaching Jason how to really care for them by lovingly talk about the animals. 

“What do you mean?” He tried to sound casually aloof, genuinely confused. He knew it was a long shot but he couldn’t tell him the truth. He was stuck in directly lying to yet another person he cared for.

Nico didn’t speak, his almost black irises piercing through Jason like he expected to scare him into talking. Or maybe he was just getting ready to smite him right then and there for so obviously lying to him.

“You must have said it.” Jason continued, shrugging and very obviously avoiding looking back at those unamused eyes. “How _would_ I know her name?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Nico said.

More silence.

Jason took the moment to try and think of what could possibly be an explanation for knowing Hazel’s name, something that he shouldn’t know. He couldn’t know about her because she had been trapped in the Fields of Asphodel for years on end. He couldn’t have talked to her before because Nico had been the one who took him to her.

“Nico, I don’t know!” He kept his mouth open, hoping more words would come out that would hopefully satisfy Nico with an acceptable answer. But they didn’t. 

He was lost, a little angry, even if not at anyone in particular. He didn’t just know Hazel, he knew all of these people he had technically never met. Apart from Dakota and Gwen, the people that directly helped the Prophecy of Seven are the only people he ever called friends. They were the closest thing he had ever had to family and he had to pretend he had never heard of any of them. 

He was annoyed because, even if he wanted to tell people the truth, him telling anyone he was from another time and had been pleasantly impaled by a dead Emperor and magically sent to the past was probably enough for them to lock him up. Lock him in a room, no windows, padded walls and a certificate of insanity that deemed him unfit for life without close supervision.

As demigods, they saw the craziest things happen. But would anyone really believe him if he suddenly started acting like Rachel Elizabeth Dare and giving them pieces of their future? Would Piper, who didn’t know who he was, believe him if he told her a giant was going to take her father? Would Nico believe him if he told him he would come closer to death than he had ever been, enclosed in an ancient ceramic vase? Would Leo believe him if he told him that, in less than a year, he would die?

A knot formed in his throat as he thought of all the things he would have to let his friends go through for the sake of a future he didn’t even know he wanted. But one with clear outcomes, no surprises. No new deaths or monsters or unwanted and unexpected suffering. At least he knew what was to come was something people could get through, because they had before.

“I know you’re lying.” Nico said flatly, after a few moments of pondering. “And in normal circumstances, the reason why would be irrelevant to me.”

“...But?”

“But,” he sighed, “Hazel trusts you. And I trust *her*. So I’m giving you a chance to explain.”

“How kind...” Jason muttered, and although he was glad being friendly with Hazel had unintentionally earned him some points with Nico, he didn’t agree that anyone should trust him at all. 

“So—“

“Dreams.” Jason blurted out. “I mean... The nightmares I’ve been having. She was there. I think.”

“You think?” 

Nico’s voice had a little hint of sourness to it that Jason didn’t particularly like, but he decided to ignore that it was directed at him.

“Yeah! I think!” He insisted. “I’m not sure, it’s a lot! I don’t—... I don’t remember much anymore.”

How could Nico discredit demigod dreams? He most likely had them too, and they weren’t ever comforting or clear. Demigod dreams were supposed to be some kind of amazing revelation each time, some important clue for their near future but instead they were only another burden to carry until they were hit with the obvious. The only way to decipher their meaning was to live through whatever hell they were trying to bring into light. If they had a clear message, it was usually too late to do something about it.

They looked at each other in silence until Jason couldn’t bear seeing the distrust in his eyes anymore and looked back at the much more pleasant and empty marble spheres of his father’s statue. 

“Okay.” Nico whispered, letting his legs drop on the edge of the roof. “I’ll accept your half truth. But if anything happens to her—“

“Yeah, yeah.” Jason interrupted with a small smile. “I get how threats work.” 

“Good.” 

Nico reciprocated the gesture, his lips stretching into a thin line before he let himself fall off the side of the building.

Jason would be lying if he didn’t admit it scared him for a second, so leaned forward just in time to see him disappear in the dark shadows the building cast on the light patches off beat dirt that surrounded it. 

  
➿

  
There was something inherently Greek about tricking your opponent by coming out of the underbelly of an animal. 

Now, Jason’s participation in the Siege was far from being Odysseus... well, Odyssey. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t having fun. 

Praetors were usually referees for the War Games and, as his cheek bounced against the thick grey skin of Hannibal the Elephant’s lower chest, Jason almost wished he had stuck to his designated job. 

The Fourth and Fifth had been given the attacking role, which was neither surprising nor unusual, and they were getting their asses monumentally kicked by the other three Cohorts - which was also expected. But Gwen and Dakota had come up with the brilliant idea of sending Jason into the Fort in the most ridiculous means of transportation.

The ridiculousness of it all wasn’t the elephant itself, which was frequently used to crash through the provisional walls of the Fort. Hannibal was, after all, their only weapon apart from their usual assortment of knives, swords and the occasional spear. The crazy part was that they really expected someone to hold on for dear life to the leather straps of the oversized armour they decorated the elephant’s back with. After their original upside down rider refused, they turned to Jason.

The blatant humiliation had been going on for at least an hour when Jason was yanked out of his running path and forcefully crouched behind a boulder. 

He was starting to realise he would never be as good at Siege as he was in real life battle situations. Containing your attacks was a lot harder than letting go against an enemy. And these were his friends. He didn’t think he’d ever conform with hurting his friends. Not after having to render a few of them unconscious in the battle against Gaea. Or almost killing a couple while possessed by... a variety of things.

The Senior Centurions were more excited about their plan than Jason would ever be. 

He didn’t remember the two of them working together so well, but he was happy to testify that they’d be a good change of leadership for his old Cohort. Gwendolyn was always a very quiet person, genuinely nice and the sweetest to everyone independently of their nature. New campers gravitated towards her because she was the best at making people feel welcome and wanted. Dakota, on the other hand, was a very _in your face_ kind of person. Not because he tried to _be_ in your face or because he had a huge personality, but because as a son of the God of Drama and Alcohol, it was hard not to stand out. Especially when your lips were permanently dyed a deep cherry red from the constant Kool Aid induced sugar rushes.

It was a surprisingly good combination of power. Jason was happy with it.

He smiled at his own silent thoughts while they explained the plan and realised there wasn’t that much to it. _Hold on and don’t let go until you’re close enough to run for it._ Sounded simple enough. 

So there he was, drenched in sweat, trying to stay glued to the hard skin of their buddy Hannibal, while Dakota rode him through the Field of Mars.

Jason knew he could’ve defied the plan’s logic by saying he could just fly in. But he also knew that was one of the few strategies they usually went for that worked, and Octavian could be fooled only once. And sometimes with difficulty. So he expected the Augur to be prepared for a son of Jupiter falling on them from the sky.

What he couldn’t be prepared for - and that was why the crazy elephant plan seemed like something he had to agree to - was for a son of Jupiter to drag himself through the mud and walk in through the front door.

He could hear the loud attempts at stopping Hannibal, be it by the unmistakable banging of metal against metal or by the outraged battle screams of his fellow campers. 

He watched his path upside down, his head falling back anytime he tried to see how close he was to the stone wall. Once he felt like the distance was reasonable, Jason floated under the elephant and shot himself forward like a bullet.

The gush of air he manipulated to his will knocked a couple of his opponents aside as he shot pass them, before he very hazardously flipped himself around to move feet first instead of keeping up the chances of distractedly hitting his head on the stone wall. He was happy the momentum of the flip was enough to let him land without the complete loss of balance because the moment his feet touched the ground, Jason set them in motion. He did exactly what he was told to do: he ran for the front gate.

He didn’t get to see on their faces the moment they defending team caught up with what was happening, but he could almost imagine the delay in their expressions judging by the fact that it took them a good minute to run after him. This gave him the opening he needed to skid inside the open gate of the improvised fortress, using the rocky wall of the corridor to stop his sprint. 

He didn’t have time to look both ways to make an informed decision of what would be his best route. Veering to the right, he was met by the very sharp tip of a sword against his chin. Bishop, this kid from the Second, had a fire in his eyes he almost felt bad in putting out. Jason raised his hands in a fake sign of surrender and used his opponent’s hesitation against him. In a couple of moves, Jason managed to hit the son of Mercury in the nose with the hilt of his own sword.

“Sorry!” He hissed, surprised by his own strength.

He watched the Imperial Gold coated legionnaire collapse against the stone wall of the narrow corridor and slid down the side, blood dripping into his chest plate from his left nostril. Before he could make any attempt to soften the guy’s fall, he heard the small crowd of demigods enter the tunnel. 

Jason didn’t wait for them to assess the situation. In less than a second, he was running again.

He lifted the dust from the dirt floor with his heels, the flames of the wall mounted torches that guided his way flickering as he passed them. He was surprised by the lack of people ahead of him, trying to stop his advances. But then again, his Cohort was always underestimated and they didn’t really expect anyone to make it past the row of legionnaires posted outside. 

Their mistake.

He almost ran into Michael Kahale at the end of the corridor. His eyes almost jumped out of their sockets as he tried to break his speed, ending up sliding between the open legs of the built-like-a-wrestler Centurion and stopping only as his feet met the corner wall behind him. He felt like he would’ve one hundred percent made first base if this were a baseball game.

Unfortunately for him, the golden blade that fell from the Hawaiian demigod’s hand looked nothing like a bat. 

Jason looked up at the handsome face of the son of Venus and, for a second, the urgency to run left him. He stopped amidst pushing himself up from the floor and Mike seemed to be pleased by the hesitation.

“It’s over, Grace.” He smiled.

 _Boy, he has a great set of teeth_ , was Jason’s last thought before an image of Kahale at the top of Half Blood Hill snapped him out of his stupid love magic. Children of the love goddess were proving to be the bane of his existence - and yes, that very much included Cupid himself. 

“No, thank you!” 

He finished getting up, propelling himself up at the same time in a flailing of upper limbs that helped him balance his weight. And, after managing not to fall back down, face first, he was back into a sprint.

All he needed was the right momentum to grab that banner and shoot up into the sky as soon as he found an opening. Who would catch him then? The problem was finding the purple piece of cloth.

He stopped at an intersection of corridors, his mind clouded by the loud steps of half of the First Cohort and their fighter Centurion getting closer to his location. He realised he had to lose them at some point to be able to continue looking for his target.

So Jason turned left, the last left he could make before he ended up making his way back to where he had started, and let his back hit the rough surface of the wall. Kahale was smart, he knew Jason wouldn’t take that turn if he was determined to find the banner and win the Siege for the Fourth and Fifth. It was illogical take the path that would lead him back outside. 

These were Jason last War Games. Ever. His last little slice of his life as just a Camp Jupiter Praetor, before the destiny of the world fell on his shoulders and pushed him down like the weight of the sky pushed Atlas into his knees at the top of Mount Othrys. 

His luck was running out, pushing him into the beginning of October with not warning of a storm. He didn’t expect to stay at Camp Jupiter for much longer before Juno came for him and between that and the fact that he itched to contact Camp Half Blood more and more every day, Jason was a walking pile of anxiety. 

A nice round of task oriented activities was exactly what he needed to relax. Finding and kicking Octavian’s ass with his decorated banner was the stuff of dreams.

Which was funny, because he almost thought he was in one. 

He smiled, his thoughts navigating the idea and the different options of how to get the Augur, and started feeling fatigue catching up with him. Adrenaline didn’t usually wear off that fast and he had *just* stopped to gather himself. That meant he needed to move soon or he’d be too tired to fight someone like Michael.

But where was the First Cohort? They should’ve passed him already, he’d been standing there for at least a couple of minutes and there was no sign of them. Now that he paid closer attention to his surroundings, Jason found them to be strangely quiet. 

_Weird_.

With a frown, he stepped away from the wall.

The First never gave up. Especially when it came to Jason, who had vehemently refused to joined them even though it was supposedly his rightful place. So what were they doing?

He peaked back into the narrow corridor he had come from, only to blink at the darkness that had installed itself there. The lights to his left were off, the smell of burned wood lingering in the air and stinging his nostrils. Jason tried to look around him, but he was suddenly without any source of light. 

He pulled his trusty coin out of his pocket, she soft golden shine providing some comfort as it dissipated some of the blackness that surrounded him. He flipped it and caught the long sword that it turned itself into, the much larger surface illuminating at least a circular foot around him.

He squinted, the light of the Imperial Gold weapon not enough him to move safely. Stepping lowly into the intersection of corridors, Jason decided there really wasn’t anyone waiting for him around the corner. Was this an elaborate ruse? Who did they have in the First or Second that could do something like this?

He thought back on the legionnaires of the two cohorts, but he couldn’t pin anyone with such magic control that they could pull out something like this. Whoever the demigod was, Jason was making a mental note to remember to congratulate them on the _amazing_ work. 

If he lost the Siege because of this, he couldn’t even be mad about it. It was very impressive.

He was almost ready to embrace the strangeness of the situation, accept his defeat and dissolve the possible illusion when a low grumble came from the end of the central corridor. It instantly caught his attention, shaking debris from the stone walls next to him that visibly fell violently in the faint light of his sword. 

He could feel his blood rushing in his ears again, the movement of his chest more evident at the prospect of an imminent threat.

He tried to discern any other sounds that might give away what he was about to face, but there were none. Until...

 _Jason_.

He held his breath. He wasn’t entirely sure where the voice came from as the circled himself in search of its owner. He wasn’t even sure it was real. But it was starting to seem like too much work for a War Games play. It didn’t feel right. It felt like whatever was causing this was more pressing than a camper would be in the situation. Angry.

He leaned forward in the central corridor, trying to see something. Anything. And after a few seconds of squinting at the darkness, he saw two bright yellow dots floating at eye level. No, not yellow. Dripping golden, like melted metal irises glinting in the sun. It dried his mouth, the startling sight paining his chest with a wave of what he could only describe as genuine fear. The more he stared at them, the more they seemed to grow. Bigger. Closer.

“Jason?”

He screamed, backing into the hard stone behind him, as the darkened face of Nico Di Angelo showed up in the yellow glow of his weapon. Which he almost swung against him, naturally, causing the son of Hades to scream back in outrage and surprise.

Jason felt like he’d been physically hit in the center of his chest, his body collapsing back into the wall behind him. His heart constricted like it had been grabbed into stagnation for a few seconds. He was expecting a lot of things in that moment, but not a person so suddenly close to his face. 

“Holy _shit_!” He couldn’t stop the exclamation as he tried to catch his breath, a hand grasping the collar of his leather breastplate as he tried to see his friend in the darkness. “What the hell, Nico!”

“ _What the hell_!?” he repeated, an exasperated tone Jason didn’t expect lacing his words. “We’ve been looking for you for hours!” 

“What?!” Jason raised IVLIVS again to try and make out Nico’s expression, but it was nearly impossible to find him at all with his dark clothes when he was surrounded by void.

“Wait, let me—” 

He didn’t hear the end of that sentence. The air got suddenly sucked out of his lungs (which was getting old for a son of Jupiter) and he didn’t particularly enjoy the lack of warning before he got pulled into a different kind of darkness. When he blinked, he was standing in the muddy ground of the Field of Mars, a disorienting wave of nausea rendering him on his knees and making him painfully wretch as he attempted to keep the contents of his dinner in his stomach.

“Sorry, I couldn’t see anything.” Nico’s explanation sounded distant and muffled in his ears.

Was that what Shadow Travelling felt like? He didn’t remember it being so incapacitating. It was possibly one of the worst feelings Jason had ever experienced in his life. And he had _died_.

“Where have you been?” Nico asked. It sounded like he’d been repeating the question by how annoyed he looked.

Jason looked up from his protective position but, instead of replying, he took in his surroundings in shock. Where was everyone? Where was the fighting and the chaos of an elephant making his way through ranks of armoured demigods? Where were the lit torches and the crowds?

“I— “ He looked up at the son of Hades in sheer confusion. “What do you mean?”

He snorted. “What do you mean _what do I mean_? The siege ended forever ago! Reyna is ready to take someone’s head off because she thinks someone is trying some stupid prank—“

Jason kept staring up at Nico in confusion, although he wasn’t exactly listening to him anymore. He’d never noticed he talked with his hands so much when he was angry.

He was angry?

_Why? Who pissed him off?_

“You lost, by the way!” Nico finished, taking a breath and letting his shoulders slump as if he had just noticed he was displaying a lot more concern than he had meant to and decided to deflate his irritable state.

“Wait...” Jason smiled as he shook his head in disbelief. “You’re saying I was gone for hours? I was in there for five minutes.”

“No?” Nico’s hands flew to his hips, which would be a surprisingly amusing image to look up at, were Jason not sincerely shaken. “You went in there four hours ago. Half the Senate is looking for you. The other half is trying to figure out what Octavian could have done to make you disappear!” 

_Oh, I pissed him off._

“Disappear?! I didn’t _disappear_ , I—“

Jason looked from Nico to the fort. There was no way he was inside the wall for more than a few minutes before he got scared out of his wits. Before... that other thing showed up. 

How had he been missing for such a long time?

He wondered if this had been Juno’s attempt at taking him into the limbo he knew he had been in for the two months before he showed up in the Wilderness School’s bus. 

She had to make sure the plan worked when she decided to execute it. Maybe she needed to be assured that she could trap Jason in the darkness and let time pass for him as she pleased. 

Unfortunately, Jason couldn’t bring himself to believe Hera had anything to do with the few minutes he had been stranded in the maze of corridors of the Fort. Whatever it was that he saw, real or not, didn’t feel _good_. It felt heavy. It pulled him in with the same force that it made him want to recoil in fear. 

He stared at the half fallen stone structure in the distance, feeling the very obvious shadow of Nico’s gaze on the back of his head. 

He guessed it was no longer true that didn’t have any shared experiences. Maybe not _traumatic_ , but somewhat disconcerting. At least for Jason.

When the son of Hades extended his arm in front of him as an offer of assistance, Jason looked away from the horizon and focused on the glinting silver ring that sat comfortably on Nico’s middle finger and accepted the help.

Little did he know the burnt metal surface of the skull he knew so well would be his last memory from Camp Jupiter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry, I’ve been trying really hard to update this but I’ve been kidnapped by The Magnus Archives podcast and it’s been hard to focus on anything else but that!
> 
> I’m not entirely happy with this tbh, there were a lot of rewrites !
> 
> Next chapter I’ll go into canon events tho! 
> 
> Stay safe and stay home, guys!

**Author's Note:**

> Because I have absolutely no self control I have decided to start another fic before I finish my previous one.
> 
> Second chances mean a lot to me. Jason deserved a lot more than that so I’m indulging in giving him a little bit of happiness.
> 
> I’m making myself happy with this one. That’s all 😌


End file.
